Ayumi Hamasaki – Colours June 23, 2014

Wow, Ayu opens her newest album with the leading A-side from the only single released for this album. It’s funny because it does light up the rest of the album with a dance track and I’m quite all right with that. The song is still great to listen to and Ayu gives a great performance even if the PV was a bit shady. A fun summer song and an awesome way to kick this album off.

2. XOXO

Yes, I know Ayu released three special singles before the album, but I didn’t review them so that’s why I didn’t bother to bold them because they were that close to the release date (well actually not really because the album is actually dropping in July >.>) and those 3 singles would render the album to be entirely be in bold. To XOXO, when I saw the producers being mostly dance producers, I was excited to hear the lot of em. I do get a certain “Party queen” sound out of this one with the more hip style and emphasis on beats. Ayu’s voice is still kind of changing a bit which does throw me, but I can dig it. It’s a good song to just dance with overall.

3. What is forever love

Moving on, we get out next new track What is forever love is another good dance track and I believe this is the one produced by DAISHI DANCE who we all should be familiar with if we’re fans of Mika Nakashima. So the similarities in style is very obvious from the start. What we weren’t told was that this is actually a duet between Ayu and Naoya Urata from AAA. I was quite surprised and well at the same was like figures the two would work together again. The song is pleasant enough and the dance beats do make it nice that it isn’t a full ballad at least…relatively saying, it’s a good track.

4. Hello new me

While I didn’t bold the special singles, I did bold the actual digital singles and there was two! This one was the 2nd, released in May and well for being a dance-centric album, I wasn’t expecting a ballad to make an appearance (shows that I didn’t listen to either digital track). I guess it was nice that “What is forever love” managed to slow things down before we took on this song. It’s kind of like a more mellow “Life” which was already forgetful to me as it is, but this kind of felt out of place and overly forgetful. Oh well…

5. Pray

Then we move to another ballad which was also the other digital single she released. The thing with this track is that it also doesn’t seem to fit this album real well, almost sounds like it belongs on “FIVE” more than anything else. Add on that it’s the longest track at over 6 minutes and well…in a way is good, but not in the way that it’d work on this album. I like this song by itself though which at least means something.

6. Terminal

After that rather abrupt slowdown, we move back to dance tracks into the second half of the album starting with Terminal and really when you have a producer like Armin van Buuren, you know you’re getting a trance track and that’s what Terminal is. Very synth-heavy, but it has its moments of calm with those areas with piano and Ayu singing lyrics. It’s been a while since we’ve had an original song done like this by a trance producer (that wasn’t part of the a-yu-mix crowd, maybe “Connected”?). Still if you want that heavy pulsating beat, this is the song to come to and I loved it!

7. Angel

After the two longest songs on the album, we cut to some shorter songs. Angel starts off slow but nicely with Ayu but the song takes a dramatic turn when it turns into a kind of sluggish ballad but not really because it has other things going on. Actually…I hate to be that guy, but the feel of the song reminds me of frickin’ Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”…I don’t know why, but that slow beat and power vocals in the chorus just really scream it…I don’t know, it’s OK, but sure does sound unoriginal to me…

8. Merry-go-round

Fitting that she’d include the secondary A-side from the single to be on the album. When I reviewed it initially, Merry-go-round was a good song despite the fact that VERBAL kind of made things icky. Coming back to it now, not much has changed on my opinion, still a pretty catchy song and I still don’t like VERBAL in the song but, hey whatcha gonna do. At least it made the album and picks things up after “Angel”.

9. Lelio

There was a couple promotional PVs but the only one I saw was this one and well, Lelio was something else. It suited the whole dance-centric aspect nicely but a lot of the time, I thought this song was a Koda Kumi track😄. That being said, Lelio is a pretty cool song. I enjoy the dance beats and Ayu’s energy with this song quite a bit😄. Probably one of the standout songs off the album.

10. NOW & 4EVA

Seems strange that this is the final track. NOW & 4EVA is well, a softer song and suitable song to be the closing track. I mean like “Hello new me” it doesn’t do anything different than ideas she’s done in the past so this kind of flies by my head, but I can say I enjoyed Ayu’s vocals. Still it’s fitting as the last track, but by itself I think I’ll end up not remembering it much.

Tracks Recommended

Feel the love

Lelio

Terminal

XOXO

Song of Avoidance

Hello new me

Coming into Ayu’s newest album, Colours…it really felt like monochrome to me. I think it’s for the fact that really avex kind of blew it with the marketing by having all of the songs released seperately before the album dropped (which even then the physical release is a couple weeks away as it is). Though it seems that more effort was put into her dance tracks than her non-ones…Honestly all 4 mid-tempo tracks are just ultimately forgettable to me here…like they didn’t belong (especially the two digital singles). Besides that chunk, the rest of the album is really good, she should’ve fully stuck to that and probably not let the current marketing strategy continue on TBH…